RAID, or Redundant Array of Independent Disks, is a technology for storing data on a number hard drives which function together as one logical unit. The drives could be physical or logical i.e. in the latter case a single drive is divided into individual ones via virtualization software. In either case, exactly the same information is saved on all the drives and the key advantage of using this kind of a setup is that in case a drive fails, the data will remain available on the other ones. Employing a RAID also improves the overall performance since the input and output operations will be spread among a couple of drives. There are several kinds of RAID depending on how many hard disks are used, whether writing is done on all drives in real time or just on one, and how the information is synced between the hard drives - whether it's written in blocks on one drive after another or it is mirrored from one on the others. All these factors suggest that the fault tolerance as well as the performance between the various RAID types could differ.

RAID in Cloud Website Hosting

The NVMe drives that our cutting-edge cloud Internet hosting platform employs for storage operate in RAID-Z. This sort of RAID is designed to work with the ZFS file system that runs on the platform and it uses the so-called parity disk - a specific drive where data kept on the other drives is copied with an additional bit added to it. In case one of the disks stops functioning, your sites will continue working from the other ones and once we replace the malfunctioning one, the info that will be copied on it will be rebuilt from what is stored on the rest of the drives as well as the information from the parity disk. This is done in order to be able to recalculate the bits of every file properly and to verify the integrity of the info duplicated on the new drive. This is an additional level of security for the info which you upload to your cloud website hosting account along with the ZFS file system which compares a special digital fingerprint for each and every file on all of the disk drives in real time.

RAID in Semi-dedicated Servers

The data uploaded to any semi-dedicated server account is stored on NVMe drives that operate in RAID-Z. One of the drives in this kind of a setup is used for parity - any time data is copied on it, an extra bit is added. If a disk turns out to be faulty, it will be taken out of the RAID without interrupting the operation of the websites as the data will load from the rest of the drives, and when a brand new drive is added, the info which will be duplicated on it will be a blend between the data on the parity disk and data stored on the other hard drives in the RAID. That is done so as to ensure that the info which is being copied is accurate, so the moment the new drive is rebuilt, it could be incorporated into the RAID as a production one. This is an additional warranty for the integrity of your information since the ZFS file system which runs on our cloud web hosting platform analyzes a special checksum of all copies of the files on the different drives to be able to avoid any probability of silent data corruption.

RAID in VPS Servers

All VPS server accounts which our company provides are generated on physical servers that employ NVMe drives functioning in RAID. At least one drive is employed for parity - one additional bit is added to the data copied on it and in case a main disk breaks down, this bit makes it easier to recalculate the bits of the files on the damaged hard disk so that the right information is restored on the new drive added to the RAID. In the mean time, your Internet sites will remain online because all the information will still load from at least 1 other hard drive. In case you add regular backups to your VPS plan, a copy of the info will be saved on standard disk drives that also function in RAID as we would like to make certain that any type of content you upload will be risk-free all of the time. Working with multiple hard disks in RAID for all of the main and backup servers enables us to offer fast and reliable hosting service.